Canon EOS 10D & Autofocus in very low light

I recently bought a Fuji S602Z and although I am quite pleased with it on
the whole, I am severely disappointed at its low light ability. Since a lot
of what I do involves taking pictures in badly lit churches at a very close
range (circa 40 cm) I need a camera with an autofocus that can handle that
well. The Fuji fails me in two respects, its autofocus stops working under
low light conditions and its electronic view-finder is so dim it shows
nothing under such conditions, so that I cannot focus manually either.
I would also like a camera that is a little more sturdy than my Fuji and
one that allows me to switch lenses. My eye has fallen on the Canon EOS
10D. I would appreciate comments about its low light abilities from users
(rather than the reviews: they fooled me once before).

While I am at it, any recommendations as to a basic set of lenses to get
with this camera (some idea of price would also help).

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Guest

In message <Xns93FFCF820EF3Blh@62.153.159.134>,
Luuk Houwen <> wrote:
>I recently bought a Fuji S602Z and although I am quite pleased with it on
>the whole, I am severely disappointed at its low light ability. Since a lot
>of what I do involves taking pictures in badly lit churches at a very close
>range (circa 40 cm) I need a camera with an autofocus that can handle that
>well. The Fuji fails me in two respects, its autofocus stops working under
>low light conditions and its electronic view-finder is so dim it shows
>nothing under such conditions, so that I cannot focus manually either.
>I would also like a camera that is a little more sturdy than my Fuji and
>one that allows me to switch lenses. My eye has fallen on the Canon EOS
>10D. I would appreciate comments about its low light abilities from users
>(rather than the reviews: they fooled me once before).
>
>While I am at it, any recommendations as to a basic set of lenses to get
>with this camera (some idea of price would also help).

The 10D is much more sensitive to light, and has much less noise than
the camera that you are used to, but keep in mind that good Canon-mount
lenses that are fast are generally very expensive, so you will lose some
of that extra sensitivity to medium or low-priced lenses. There are
exceptions though, like the Canon 50mm f1.8 lens, which is only about
$75, and is fairly sharp as well. When you get away from 50mm in either
direction though, or into zooms, fast lenses can be very expensive.
--

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I recently obtained a 10D, looking to obtain better high ISO
performance than the 5mpixel class fixed lens digicams.

I did a first set of 'at dusk' walk around pictures, which I've posted
to <http://www.bayarea.net/~ramarren/photostuff/PAW3/39.htm>. They were
taken at ISOs ranging from 400 to 1600 ... Click on the images to see
the EXIF information. Focusing in those light levels was excellent with
the 50/1.4 lens: fast and sure.

My choices for lenses were all targeted to low light shooting so far,
20/2.8, 50/1.4 and 100/2, while being reasonably priced. Fast zooms and
fixed focal length teles cost a bundle.

Altogether, that's about $3500 worth of gear and represents a solid
starting point to me for low light work at reasonable cost. The 50/1.8
is one way to save $250. It's a good lens for the money but it is a
very cheap mount, I wasn't happy with the feel.

Godfrey

In article <Xns93FFCF820EF3Blh@62.153.159.134>, Luuk Houwen
<> wrote:
> I recently bought a Fuji S602Z and although I am quite pleased with it on
> the whole, I am severely disappointed at its low light ability. Since a lot
> of what I do involves taking pictures in badly lit churches at a very close
> range (circa 40 cm) I need a camera with an autofocus that can handle that
> well. The Fuji fails me in two respects, its autofocus stops working under
> low light conditions and its electronic view-finder is so dim it shows
> nothing under such conditions, so that I cannot focus manually either.
> I would also like a camera that is a little more sturdy than my Fuji and
> one that allows me to switch lenses. My eye has fallen on the Canon EOS
> 10D. I would appreciate comments about its low light abilities from users
> (rather than the reviews: they fooled me once before).
>
> While I am at it, any recommendations as to a basic set of lenses to get
> with this camera (some idea of price would also help).
>
>
> Luuk Houwen
> Hattingen
> Germany

> I did a first set of 'at dusk' walk around pictures, which I've posted
> to <http://www.bayarea.net/~ramarren/photostuff/PAW3/39.htm>. They were
> taken at ISOs ranging from 400 to 1600 ... Click on the images to see
> the EXIF information. Focusing in those light levels was excellent with
> the 50/1.4 lens: fast and sure.

Interesting. I looked closely at your ISO 1600 shots and they look good. I
have a Digital Rebel and my ISO 1600 shots are very noisy ... but taken
under different conditions. Also, viewing small web pix can be misleading.
Might be interesting to do a comparison to determine if the two cameras are
more different than generally believed. However, I am not so motivated as
to buy a 10D and get really technical! However, I am also interested in
low-light photography.

If you really want good low light ability in the 6mp dslr range, the Nikon
D100 is the way to go.

"Luuk Houwen" <> wrote in message
news:Xns93FFCF820EF3Blh@62.153.159.134...
> I recently bought a Fuji S602Z and although I am quite pleased with it on
> the whole, I am severely disappointed at its low light ability. Since a
lot
> of what I do involves taking pictures in badly lit churches at a very
close
> range (circa 40 cm) I need a camera with an autofocus that can handle that
> well. The Fuji fails me in two respects, its autofocus stops working under
> low light conditions and its electronic view-finder is so dim it shows
> nothing under such conditions, so that I cannot focus manually either.
> I would also like a camera that is a little more sturdy than my Fuji and
> one that allows me to switch lenses. My eye has fallen on the Canon EOS
> 10D. I would appreciate comments about its low light abilities from users
> (rather than the reviews: they fooled me once before).
>
> While I am at it, any recommendations as to a basic set of lenses to get
> with this camera (some idea of price would also help).
>
>
> Luuk Houwen
> Hattingen
> Germany

Hmm. Downsampling to fit display requirements for a web page kills most
of the noise. I think I would hold off on judging comparative quality
.... I'll see if I can post a few unprocessed snippets at original
resolution so you can see the actual noise.

Godfrey

In article <>, Charles Schuler
<> wrote:
> Interesting. I looked closely at your ISO 1600 shots and they look good. I
> have a Digital Rebel and my ISO 1600 shots are very noisy ... but taken
> under different conditions. Also, viewing small web pix can be misleading.
> Might be interesting to do a comparison to determine if the two cameras are
> more different than generally believed. However, I am not so motivated as
> to buy a 10D and get really technical! However, I am also interested in
> low-light photography.
>
>

Downsampling will kill noise about equally for either F7x7 vs 10D. Of course,
the 10D is a 6Mpixel camera so to create a web rez image, you downsample
proportionately further.

Godfrey

On Tue, 23 Sep 2003 19:13:49 -0700, wrote
(in message <>):
> In message <230920031445350093%>,
> Godfrey DiGiorgi <> wrote:
>
>> Hmm. Downsampling to fit display requirements for a web page kills most
>> of the noise.
>
> Would you say that this is more true for the 10D than the F7x7?
>
> That's what I've been meaning when I called the F7x7 noise "blotchy".
>

Guest

That's different than what I've noticed. The noise on my F707 tends to
be wide, pixel-wise. The 10D noise is finer and is destroyed more
easily by printing small or downsampling.
>Of course,
>the 10D is a 6Mpixel camera so to create a web rez image, you downsample
>proportionately further.

Not by much, though. We're talking about 20% or so horizontally, and
even less vertically.
--

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 3:29:24 -0700, wrote
(in message <>):
>> Of course,
>> the 10D is a 6Mpixel camera so to create a web rez image, you downsample
>> proportionately further.
>
> Not by much, though. We're talking about 20% or so horizontally, and
> even less vertically.

"Luuk Houwen" <> wrote in message
news:Xns93FFCF820EF3Blh@62.153.159.134...
> I recently bought a Fuji S602Z and although I am quite pleased with it on
> the whole, I am severely disappointed at its low light ability. Since a
lot
> of what I do involves taking pictures in badly lit churches at a very
close
> range (circa 40 cm) I need a camera with an autofocus that can handle that
> well. The Fuji fails me in two respects, its autofocus stops working under
> low light conditions and its electronic view-finder is so dim it shows
> nothing under such conditions, so that I cannot focus manually either.
> I would also like a camera that is a little more sturdy than my Fuji and
> one that allows me to switch lenses. My eye has fallen on the Canon EOS
> 10D. I would appreciate comments about its low light abilities from users
> (rather than the reviews: they fooled me once before).
>
> While I am at it, any recommendations as to a basic set of lenses to get
> with this camera (some idea of price would also help).
>
>
> Luuk Houwen
> Hattingen
> Germany

We use a 10D and have recently been doing commercial low-light work with it
(actually in churches). It is capable of producing very good quality images
under these conditions - I would recommend not pushing the ISO setting up
high - that seems to produce more noise than longer exposures on a low ISO.
A lot of our work has actually been done with a very mediocre Tamron lens
stopped right down to get acceptable sharpness. This resulted in exposures
of up to 30 seconds at ISO 100 but the noise levels were still good on
prints of 10x8.

Low-light autofocus in large spaces is always going to be difficult - the
poor CPU does need some detail to recognize and the built-in AF illuminator
can't help much at distances of several tens of feet inside a large church
for example. That said, the number of times we have had to switch to manual
focus, even in a large cathedral, is very few...

Thanks a lot Martin, it is good to know that it can be done. However, there
is hitch, for my work I cannot use a tripod, so no long exposure times, I
must hold the thing and use a flash or a light, with a maximum distance to
the object to be photographed (misericords) of some 50 cm (in extremely
cramped conditions).

[snip]
>Interesting. I looked closely at your ISO 1600 shots and they look good. I
>have a Digital Rebel and my ISO 1600 shots are very noisy ... but taken
>under different conditions. Also, viewing small web pix can be misleading.
>Might be interesting to do a comparison to determine if the two cameras are
[snip]

The Rebel has slightly more noise than the 10D even though they use
mostly the same electronics (perhaps caused by the higher sharpening
on the Rebel). Taking the sharpening parameters into account brings
the two cameras much closer. Gotta love that website, does a thorough
job!

"Luuk Houwen" <> wrote in message
news:Xns9402DD3CF108Elh@62.153.159.134...
> Thanks a lot Martin, it is good to know that it can be done. However,
there
> is hitch, for my work I cannot use a tripod, so no long exposure times, I
> must hold the thing and use a flash or a light, with a maximum distance to
> the object to be photographed (misericords) of some 50 cm (in extremely
> cramped conditions).
>
> --
> Luuk Houwen
> Hattingen
> Germany

If you have to work that close with some form of artificial light in a
confined space, you probably have no choice but to use a "ring flash" - the
dedicated Canon unit costs close to £400 but I have seen cheaper aftermarket
models on sale. Personally, I would still try to use at least a monopod if
at all possible - I have pretty much given up on trying to produce saleable
images without some kind of support - perhaps I could have done when I was
younger, with a steady hand but these days it is a dead loss...

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